Rep. Raúl Grijalva was back on Capitol Hill on Tuesday for the first time since he announced a lung cancer diagnosis in April.
The Arizona Democrat’s day began in a closed-door meeting to elect House Democratic leaders. Later in the afternoon, Grijalva offered an amendment to a geothermal energy bill up for debate on the floor.
But swirling around the lawmaker’s return to Washington are continued murmurs about his future as top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee and whether he was prepared to fend off a possible challenge from Rep. Jared Huffman of California, another progressive.
The next few weeks will be critical for Grijalva in proving he is up for the job despite having missed months of work, and amid private grumblings from committee members that he was personally unreachable for much of that time and that his cancer treatment has left him in a diminished state.
